Show Notes

February is Women in Horror Month, an international initiative which encourages supporters to learn about and showcase the underrepresented work of women in the horror industries. Whether they are on the screen, behind the scenes, or contributing in their other various artistic ways, it is clear that women love, appreciate, and contribute to the horror genre. Check out the hashtag WiHM9 for plenty of suggestions. Or if you have the stomach for stronger fair, our sister show PseudoPod.

Silver Things

by Dagny Paul

The first time Leah turned into a fish, she had been small, maybe four, and she’d been sitting with her daddy on the rock that overlooked the lake. He had turned to her with his stubbled smile and his bright blue eyes and asked her if she’d wanted to dive. She didn’t know how to swim, she’d said, and he had said that’s okay, sweetheart, because we’ll be fish.

He’d stripped off his shirt and pulled her to her little feet, and before she’d even had time to think about it they had jumped. She’d never hesitated, never worried. He had never let her down.

Dreidel Of Dread: The Very Cthulhu Chanukah

by Alex Shvartsman

Twas the night before Chanukah, and all through the planet, not a creature was stirring except for the Elder God Cthulhu who was waking up from his eons-long slumber. And as the terrible creature awakened in the city of R’lyeh, deep beneath the Pacific Ocean, and wiped drool from his face-tentacles, all the usual signs heralded the upcoming apocalypse in the outside world: mass hysteria, cats and dogs living together, and cable repairmen arriving to their appointments within the designated three-hour window.

“This will not do,” said Chanukah Henry. “I will not have the world ending on my watch, not during the Festival of Lights.” (Continue Reading…)

Show Notes

Brothers in Stitches

by Dantzel Cherry

I’m sorry to say Master lay charred and inert on the laboratory floor for a good quarter hour before I noticed he was dead. I regret pulling the wrong lever, resulting in an overflow of electricity from the storm, the brunt of which Master received, resulting in his death and a ruined experiment. I’m even sorrier to admit I then ate all his internal organs before I remembered to offer any to Harry the moaning subject chained to the metal chair in the middle of the room or to the rest of my brothers-in-stitches in the downstairs dungeon.

A Secret of Devils

by Cassandra Khaw

The devil came to Georgia on a Saturday night. Atlanta, specifically. His arrival was heralded by no omens; he took a bumblebee-black cab to the city’s heart, a little suitcase in tow. His attire was sharp enough to kill, of course, but you expect that sort of thing with the devil.

Show Notes

My Friend Fishfinger by Daisy, age 7

by David Tallerman

Fishfinger is my bestest friend in the whole world. And she says I’m her bestest friend too, even though she doesn’t have any other friends, but I’m still the best anyway so that’s okay.

Her name isn’t really Fishfinger, that’s just what everybody at school calls her, because they say she smells like fish and she looks a bit like a fish as well. And she does too but I still like her and anyway they all smell too so there. My mommy says it’s mean and I should call her her proper name but Fishfinger says she doesn’t mind, she does when other kids call her it because they’re mean and they don’t like her but I’m nice she says and I’m her bestest friend so it’s okay. But really her real name is Samantha. (Continue Reading…)

Show Notes

Theme music is “Appeal to Heavens” by Alexye Nov, available at MusicAlley.com.

Isle of the Dancing Dead

by Rick Kennett

“Is it true,” said young George as he filled in his first grave, “that the best place to hide from a ghost is in a cemetery?”

“Yes,” said the grave-digger, shovelling. “Most times you’d be right aholding to that notion. But not here. Not in this particular cemetery. Not with the Chenoweth Grand Tomb not five hundred yards behind you.”